Movie Treasure Island 1934

[Midas Souza]

YoungJim Hawkins (Jackie Cooper) and his mother (Dorothy Peterson) run the Admiral Benbow, a tavern near Bristol, England. One dark and stormy night, during a birthday celebration, the mysterious Billy Bones (Lionel Barrymore) arrives and drunkenly talks about treasure. Soon after, Bones is visited by Black Dog (Charles McNaughton) then Pew (William V. Mong), and drops dead, leaving a chest, which he bragged contained gold and jewels. Instead of money, Jim finds a map that his friend Dr. Livesey (Otto Kruger) realizes will lead them to the famous Flint treasure. Squire Trelawney (Nigel Bruce) raises money for a voyage to the treasure island and they set sail on Captain Alexander Smollett's (Lewis Stone) ship Hispaniola. Also on board is the one-legged Long John Silver (Wallace Beery) and his cronies. Even though Bones had warned Jim about a sailor with one leg, they become friends.

During the voyage, several fatal "accidents" happen to sailors who disapprove of Silver and his cohorts. Then, the night before landing on the island, Jim overhears Silver plotting to take the treasure and kill Smollett's men. Jim goes ashore with the men, and encounters an old hermit named Ben Gunn (Chic Sale), who tells him that he has found Flint's treasure. Meanwhile, Smollett and his loyal men flee to Flint's stockade on the island for safety. Silver's men then attack the stockade when Smollett refuses to give them the treasure map. While the situation looks hopeless, Jim secretly goes back to the Hispaniola at night, sails it to a safe location and shoots one of the pirates in self-defense. When he returns to the stockade, Silver's men are there and Silver tells them that a treaty has been signed. The pirates want to kill Jim, but Silver protects him. Dr. Livesey comes for Jim, but the boy refuses to break his word to Silver not to run away. The next day the pirates search for the treasure hold and when they find it, it is empty. When some of the pirates mutiny against Silver, Livesey and Gunn join him in the fight. Smollett then sails home with the treasure, which Gunn had hidden in his cave, and with Silver as his prisoner. Silver tells Jim a horror story of a slow death by hanging due to his one leg causing Jim to be unable to stand by and let his friend be hanged, Jim frees Silver. As he sails away, Silver promises to hunt treasure with Jim again some day, as Honest John Silver.

Wallace Beery originally was cast as Israel Hands in director Maurice Tourneur's silent production of Treasure Island for Paramount in 1920 (now a lost film). Beery was replaced by Joseph Singleton but appeared that year in Tourneur's silent masterpiece The Last of the Mohicans.

Writing for The Spectator in 1936, Graham Greene favorably compared the film to Midshipman Easy, describing Treasure Island as having "a deeper, a more poetic value", with characters and events providing rich symbolism and a palpable sense of good and evil.[3]

Young Jim Hawkins is a brave, scrappy, and valiant lad, even risking his life on principle. Most of the pirates are greedy, treacherous rascals, with the lying, cunning Long John Silver rendered sympathetic by his almost fatherly affection for Jim (we know nothing about the boy's own missing dad). Though it's doubtful Long John has reformed by the fadeout. Despite a setting predominantly in the West Indies, the ship's crew is all white.

Parents need to know that there are fatal shootings and stabbings, and one intense scene when a horse-drawn carriage turns a pirate into roadkill. One scene even has pedophile overtones, but it will likely go over most kids' heads. The pirates are also pretty deep into the grog. When one of them dies, it's hard to determine if he was slain by his mates or alcohol poisoning. Young hero Jim Hawkins is threatened with death on occasion, though Long John serves as his protector, and Jim later returns the favor. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.

In MGM's 1934 film adaptation of TREASURE ISLAND, fatherless 13-year-old Brit Jim Hawkins (Jackie Cooper) runs a seaside tavern and inn with his mother in the 1700s. Tenant and ex-pirate Billy Bones (Lionel Barrymore) warns Jim to watch out for his associates, especially a one-legged man, then gives Jim a map of an island where the legendary pirate Flint buried his treasure. A gang of buccaneers visit to get information out of Bones, who dies. Jim alerts local authorities, who decide to recover the treasure themselves, but they aren't seafarers, so they hire Long John Silver (Wallace Beery), a crippled, well-connected old salt who can get a seasoned crew together on short notice. Jim is suspicious, but Long John eventually wins the boy over. They're well underway when Jim overhears the awful truth. Long John and his mates are pirates who plan to steal the map and kill everyone else. After the ship reaches the island, Jim bounces back and forth between the two armed factions, the mutinous pirates flying the Jolly Roger and the stalwart Englishmen and those seamen loyal to them.

Robert Lewis Stevenson's story remains a compelling storyline, and this telling, despite its age, moves quite nimbly and has some great full-scale schooners. Still, a lot of key moments seem to happen off-camera, and the narrative has been re-rigged to deviate from the novel and give much quality time to Cooper and Beery. All-American Beery seems a trifle unlikely as Long John Silver, but as Jim Hawkins, young Jackie Cooper is terrific and really takes charge of the screen.

The question is always whether Long John is secretly as fond of Jim as he claims, or is the crafty pirate leader just using the kid as a pawn and human shield? The easygoing Long John explains his thieving, even murderous ways to the boy as just "tactics" and talks casually about killing off his pirate-shipmates to make greater shares of loot for everyone. Jim Hawkins tearfully refuses to accept that -- yet he still grows to love Long John.

Families can talk about Jim's relationship to Long John. Do you think Jim has done the right thing in the end? Long John is endlessly flattering and complimentary to the boy -- yet he uses the same flowery language with an adult sailor, and casually kills that same man when he won't join the pirate mutiny. Do you think Long John has changed by the end? Why do you think pirate yarns were popular in the 1930s and are still popular today? How does this version of the tale compare to the book or other versions?

Adaptational Dumbass: Both Silver and Hawkins. In both the movie and the novel, Silver is in danger of being exposed as a pirate by being caught with Black Dog in his tavern. In the novel, Silver cleverly behaves exactly as an innocent man would, unhesitatingly laying all of the facts that Hawkins has seen openly before Squire Trelawney, and thus convinces both Trelawney and the highly suspicious Hawkins that he's clean. In this movie, Silver instead behaves exactly as a guilty man would, urging Hawkins to help him hide the truth from the Squire, but Hawkins is so gullible here that he goes along with it. Advertised Extra: The opening credits present the film as "Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (with Lionel Barrymore) but as Billy Bones, Lionel Barrymore is only in the beginning. The Aloner: Ben Gunn, a former pirate who used to be part of Captain Flint's crew, who was marooned on the island three years ago after a failed attempt to find Flint's treasure. Bad Guy Bar: Silver runs an inn of his own, filled with fellow cut-throats. Battering Ram: Pirates led by Blind Pew break their way through into the Admiral Benbow Inn with a log acting as a makeshift battering ram. Broken Pedestal: Young Jim sees Silver as the best friend he ever had, and is seriously hurt when he learns of Silver's true intentions regarding the treasure hunt. Canon Foreigner: A short lute-playing pirate named Dandy Dawson is this film's addition to Silver's band of mutineers. Cutlass Between the Teeth: After failing to kill Jim by throwing his knife, Israel Hands picks it up again, bites down on it, and climbs after Jim as he makes up the Hispaniola's main mast. Hidden Weapons: As Silver introduces the various patrons (that are totally not pirates) of his inn to Jim, one of them, named Dandy Dawson, greets the young man by raising his hat, showing the audience that he has a knife hidden inside it. In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It: The opening credits present the film as "Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (with Lionel Barrymore)". Large Ham: The sets must have shook from the volume of Lionel Barrymore's bellowing as Billy Bones. Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Jackie Cooper, as Jim, speaks in his normal American accent. Pirate Parrot: Silver has one, though it doesn't talk like in the other adaptations. Just before Silver makes his escape, he gives the parrot to Jim. Tap on the Head: As he makes his escape from the Hispaniola, Silver knocks out Ben Gunn, who is on guard, with a stick. Threatening Shark: A shark, dubbed Old Nicodemus, follows Hispaniola as it makes its way towards the island. After Mr. Arrow disappears one night, so does Old Nicodemus.... Travel Montage: Bits from the voyage are intercut with a shot of a map as the ship heads to the island where the treasure is buried.

Robert Louis Stevenson's novel first appeared in Young Folks from 1881 to Jun 1882 under the title The Sea Cook or Treasure Island. The opening title card reads, "Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer presents Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island." The end title card of the viewed print was superimposed over an "NRA" membership emblem. According to contemporary news items, as well as the picture's presskit, portions of the film were shot on location on and around Santa Catalina Island and Oakland, CA. A pre-production news item also noted that some exteriors were to be filmed in Hawaii. Information provided by the Point Lobos Historical Society notes that some scenes were also filmed at Point Lobos, CA. In its review, MPH lists the running time as 95 min. "on the Coast," but all other sources list it as 109 to 110 mins. Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper had previously appeared together in the very successful 1931 film The Champ, and 1933's The Bowery. Although some reviewers noted their continued appeal in this picture, most said the film was too long to hold the audience's interest. According to modern sources, however, the film did become one of M-G-M's biggest hits of the year. A HR news item in 1938 noted that the picture was being re-issued that summer. Stevenson's story has been adapted for the screen many times, including the 1917 Fox version directed by C. M. and S. A. Franklin, with Francis Carpenter and Violet Radcliffe, and the 1920 Famous Players-Lasky, Maurice Tourneur directed version with Charles Ogle and Shirley Mason (see ...

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